Legged locomotion seems to be a promising, versatile approach for robot mobility in various environments. Compared to wheel based systems, they offer a great variability of posture, allowing to navigate within tight spaces, to handle steep slopes and to step over obstacles. Requiring only small, discrete patches of support, legged systems are able to traverse rough and broken terrain. Depending on the environment, the robotic application and the requirements for speed and stability, two-, four- and six-legged configurations each offer their own advantages and also pose different challenges to the control engineer.

Currently, at the Institute of Robotics and Mechatronics research is conducted on two- and six-legged walking robots that are based on the technology of the DLR Lightweight Robot and the DLR Hand II. So far, the research concentrates on the mechanical design as well as posture and gait control algorithms, but also extends to higher level navigation and planning.

TORO is a bipedal humanoid robot based on the legs of the former DLR-Biped. The joints of TORO are designed based on the torque controllable drive technology of the DLR lightweight robot. The arms are further equipped with commercial prosthetic hands for robust interaction with the environment. This system was designed as an experimental platform for studying control algorithms related to bipedal locomotion, multi-contact interaction, as well as dynamic whole body motion generation.

For planetary exploration as well as for search and rescue missions on Earth groups of hexapedal walking robots seem to be a promising alternative or support to wheeled and tracked vehicles. In this context, the DLR Crawler is a first laboratory prototype that is built to
investigate the capabilities of hexapedal walking. Thus, it serves as a testbed for the development and evaluation of different control, gait and navigation algorithms. The experience gained with the DLR Crawler will be a valuable guide for the development of future hexapedal walking exploration robots.